Abstract
Tether-nets are one of the most promising approaches for active removal of space debris. This paper investigated the collision dynamics of flexible nets with different configurations, the focus is on the selection of an optimal configuration with respect to collision dynamics. Firstly, the design method of net configuration is proposed based on undirected graph theory, and five flexible nets with different configurations are designed, including quadrilateral, pentagon, octagon, dodecagon and circle. Secondly, the collision dynamics model is presented and its effectiveness is verified via numerical simulations and ground experiments. Finally, collision dynamics of the five flexible nets are simulated based on the verified model and the differences of these nets are compared and analyzed. Comparison results show that the flexible net with octagon configuration has better collision dynamics than others according to the maximum deformation, stress, and energy dissipation during the collision process, which provided an optimal configuration of flexible nets for space debris removal.
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